


For Posterity

by tahirire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s04e19 Jump the Shark, Gen, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-24
Updated: 2009-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tahirire/pseuds/tahirire





	For Posterity

For Posterity

The ghoul ripped the hell outta John in two seconds flat. Barton took it down like a pro. It was the least he could do after John pushed him out of the way.

After that, it was all a blur. There were hospital lights and distant voices. John was a restless man, even under sedation, and Kate would hear him cry the name in his sleep.

 _Mary, Mary._

When he finally came around she couldn’t help it. She took him home.

It wasn’t long, and it wasn’t much, but it was all she had to give.

~*~

Dean was off on his own gig when John got the call. He took the kid’s number and hung up the phone, reeling.

John remembered Kate, a little. She’d been soft and warm. She had a gentle touch, not like most nurses he’d come across. Golden hair, like Mary’s.

He’d rubbed his weary eyes and thought long and hard.

 _These things, they will find your weakness and they will use it against you._

John figured it was a trap and considered not going, but there was only one Thing he could reckon might want to trap him just then, and he wasn’t going to pass up any leads.

He’d glanced around the empty room, pictured Dean safe and well away in Nebraska, pushed down the sharp new pain of Sammy being in California, and drove to Minnesota.

To Adam.

~*~

John took one look at Adam and knew he was screwed. The kid was 12, gangly like Dean, and scary smart like Sammy. The kid was through the moon that John had finally come. He’d wrapped his scrawny arms around John like he’d known him all his life, blissfully unaware of the shroud of death and pain that followed John’s every move.

Innocent. Untouched by the family curse.

Kate had stood back and watched like a hawk. John didn’t fault Kate. He barely knew her, and the life of a hunter didn’t lend well to fatherhood.

God knew John had already proven that.

Adam smiled brightly up into John’s eyes and asked what John wanted to do, and John’s heart clenched in his chest.

Sam was a target and John and Dean his shields; and that was never going to change no matter how far Sam ran. John was going to hunt this Thing until the threat to Sam was dead. His boys were born into blood and bone and fear and raised in shadows, and there was nothing he could do about that now except to stay the course and hope that someday the chosen path would lead them to the light.

Adam was no part of the Winchester legacy.

John felt a spark of hope deep inside.

John could do the right thing by Adam.

~*~

In a crap motel room just inside Chicago, John held his sons in his arms and cried real tears and felt the piece that was missing snap back into place. Sammy gripped him back like his life depended on it, and Dean watched the whole thing talking only with his eyes, the way John knew Dean talked best.

Less than an hour later it was all ripped away, and John felt pain as he drove away that had nothing to do with the tears in his skin.

He thought of a happy young man in Minnesota and how he was going to graduate in a few short years, go to college; marry a pretty girl.

John got shitfaced drunk that night, demons be damned.

~*~

John sat in a hard plastic chair and watched his son struggling for his life. He knew that he would be giving up more than just the colt for Dean. He’d be giving up their chance at the Thing, _his_ chance to finish it once and for all.

But they were a family again, and it was worth it. Sam was right all along, and Sam was going to need them both more than ever. John could never sacrifice his son for the hunt.

They’d all already sacrificed enough.

When yellow-eyes upped the ante, John wasn’t surprised. He didn’t hesitate, he didn’t falter. He went upstairs and said goodbye to his sons, knowing that now Dean would have to be shield enough.

John told Dean he was proud of him and never looked back. He didn’t stop to worry about Adam.

He knew Adam wasn’t part of this.


End file.
